Terry Curry defends his record on ethical issues

Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry is up for re-election in November and he’s now under fire for what a law school professor calls ethical problems in his office.

But there are two sides to the story.

Terry Curry is a high profile public official seen in public on a regular basis. Deputy prosecutors who work in out of the way courtrooms have been accused of improper conduct on 22 occasions in the last 2 and a half years.

“That seems pretty darned frequent, said Curry’s GOP opponent, Duane Merchant, who is using the charges as a campaign issue.

“He’s responsible,” said Merchant of Curry. “It’s his name over the door all the letterhead is on him. What it comes down to is he’s responsible for everything.”

But Merchant is relying on research done by Professor Joel Schumm of the IU McKinney School of Law.

“I think that’s troubling,” said Schrumm, “in terms of what’s happening in that office and it also has a potential that those cases could be reversed.”

Yet the two cases that were reversed include one where the State Supreme Court reinstated the conviction and the other is yet to be considered by the Supreme Court.

Curry is proud to defend his record during the time period in question.

“We would’ve filed over 100,000 cases, appeals were taken in at least 550 and ultimately,” he said, “there’s not going to be a single case in which a judgement or conviction was reversed because of improper conduct by our office.”

And Duane Merchant says he will concentrate on other issues as the campaign goes forward.